Cooking with tart, tasty tomatillos

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Editor's note: This is the fifth column in a six-part series about cooking with chicken and eggs.

Tomatillos are a green fruit found in many Mexican-, Latin American- and Texas-style cuisines. They are tart in flavor, packed with vitamin C, low in calories and fat and heart-healthy. Tomatillos contain anti-bacterial components and are a cancer-fighting food. This colorful food is also high in potassium, which helps regulate blood pressure.

Choosing and preparing this healthy food is easy. Pick tomatillos that are green and firm with the flaky husk intact (yellow tomatillos are more ripe and difficult to work with). To store them, leave the husk on and keep them in the refrigerator for about two weeks. When preparing tomatillos, we primarily use them in a vegetable style - they are very acidic to eat raw, like fruit.

Salsa is a great way to enjoy tomatillos, since the fruit contains a pectinlike substance that helps bind the sauce ingredients together. Remove the husk and you will find a sticky layer; this needs to be washed off before cooking. Below are two methods to make tomatillo salsa. Dry-roasting tomatillos softens the meat and adds a nice smoky flavor to your dish. Blanching the ingredients is a quick way to create a salsa. They have a mellow lemon flavor as well, so adding other ingredients, such as spicy peppers, give the sauce balance.